Vampires, get off my lawn!

[lesbiassparrow]

Is there some sort of new internet law that every time someone mentions a vampire film/book/theme park/whatever horrific contribution to vampire fetishes someone is coming up with next, they have to say 'Forget Twilight'? And then they go on to describe things that if you read Twilight there is no chance that you'd be interested in?

And much as I think Twilight is filled with the WTFness of the first degree, most of the other stuff that is touted as amazing and entirely the way vampires should be depicted sounds almost equally dreadful. And, sadly, more boring (say what you like about Twilight it keeps me endlessly entertained). That may be because I am ready for vampires to be retired as a way to explore the human condition or whatever else people say they are exploring. Seriously, they're not that interesting: They eat people. They live forever or a really long time until some rightminded person comes along and stakes them. That's it, people. They're like human shaped, long-lived, man-eating lions. Who may or may not be able to go out in sunlight, depending on what crappy vampire novel they're in.

Also, introducing a more manly, killer vampire doesn't make your character necessarily better than Edward (though I will admit the odds are surely in your favour). It just makes him more manly and killer. That, in itself, is not inherently interesting and better.

Comments

[kittenscurious.livejournal.com]

I actually really quite like the vampire trope, I always have for no discernible reason, but for me, the fact that SMeyer has messed with the essentials of the lore is VERY far down on my list of issues with the series (except, sparkling?! really?!?). A few years ago, I might have had a bigger issue with it, but when Troy came out and all the Classicists in the world were pissed off about them messing with Homer, one of the Classics professors at my school, said, "You know what? I loved it because I can accept that since the Iliad is really only a myth/legend/lore, someone who wants to tell this story can rework it any way they see fit." Which is a viewpoint that makes a lot of sense and allows one to enjoy all manner of books/movies/tv shows even if it isn't "canonical". (See: Merlin, X-3/Wolverine).

[lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com]

the fact that SMeyer has messed with the essentials of the lore is VERY far down on my list of issues with the series

Yes! I mean the books have so many other issues, it strikes me that whatever she has done with vampires comes wayyy down the list. Plus, vampire mythos or whatever you call it, has never been terribly stable or consistent as far as I know. (Do you know that Roman vampires were old women who turned into birds and sucked babies' blood?) I have to admit I do sort of cherish the sparkling for the hilarity and amusement it has brought to so many people.

As for Troy, while I didn't like the film, that was mainly because I found it boring and not a terribly interesting revision of the story rather than because it messed with the Homeric version. Plus, I sort of think that like Alexander they cut out a large amount of the stuff that made the story interesting in favour of rather boring exposition. But that's an issue of poor adaptation rather than adaptation in and of itself.